November 26, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - It was in the mid 90s that we began to hear a whole lot about this new thing called the Internet, which could answer all of mankinds deepest questions. At around the same time I hit puberty and began to spend my time moping about pondering the age-old riddle of what, exactly, women look like underneath their clothing.

Evidently at some point I put two and two together and punched the appropriate keywords into the prehistoric version of Google, with spectacular results. So far so good, and if it had stopped there, the experiment might have been innocent enough. But there was a catch. Like most who have played the peeping Tom with porn, I found that my curiosity wasnt satisfied. On the contrary. I had only learned what this woman looked like. But what about all the others? Obviously I needed to see a few more examples.

And thus was an addiction born.

For the next ten years or so, I would fight a sometimes-desperate fight with this devil  for devil it is  with occasional successes, and more failures than I care to remember. And but for the grace of patient and loving parents, the influence of a remarkable woman who is now my wife, and a resurgent relationship with an all-merciful God, I shudder to think down what dark paths it might have led me.

I confess that it is not easy for me to make this admission. The most enthusiastic evangelists of the sexual revolution are wont to argue that the solution to shame and guilt is to speak more openly and casually about sex, as we might about the weather, or our health. Never mind that no one is convinced, because in our heart of hearts we know that sex is not the weather, is not our health  that it is something infinitely more strange, more powerful, more beautiful, and that no amount of chattering about it will ever completely deaden that sense of shame that comes from abusing it for our own selfish ends.

However you slice it, a porn habit is a rotten thing.

But there is a kernel of truth in the lie. Shame, when buried in our psyches, can become as a worm in the core of an apple, eating away at us from the inside. For many years, I believed that I was essentially alone in this fight, that I was one of a rare breed of villainous good-for-nothings who was so enticed by this forbidden fruit. It was only much later that I learned that I was but one of millions of my generation who had unwittingly stumbled upon the magic lamp and summoned the evil genie, with the power to grant us our most private fantasies, and who demanded nothing in return but our innocence, our self-respect, our freedom, and our happiness.

We all know the figures, and so I will only mention a few of them: that the average age of exposure to hardcore pornography is now 11 years old; that around 25% of all internet searches are for pornography; that 70% of men aged 18-24 visit porn sites in a typical month; that pornography use among women is growing astronomically.

And the problem is only getting worse. With the Internet creeping even into our pockets through our smart phones, and with porn increasingly spilling over into mainstream culture, it has become more and more difficult to drown out its siren call. Truly, there is, in the whole history of the world, no precedent for what we are now witnessing  the ready availability of explicit, hardcore pornography, with all of its vicious and violent perversions, on demand, in private, even by children.

In such an atmosphere silence is fatal. My generation, and the generation just reaching adolescence, cannot afford to receive their information on sex exclusively from those who stand to profit from their addiction. And when addiction does strike, they cannot afford to feel that they are fighting the battle alone, or, even worse, fall prey to the lie that there is no battle, that porn is normal, even healthy.

And so, we who have fought and are fighting this fight must slough off the natural embarrassment that surrounds all things sexual and speak up: not, as the pornographers may hope, in order to normalize our addiction or rationalize it away, but in order to provide encouragement to one another and to affirm this truth: that pornography is a plague upon our generation, a devil in our veins, and that it must be exorcised before it reaches our heart and destroys our capacity to love once and for all.

This is the article that is most needed at this time in our history. Thank you so much for speaking out the truth and removing the shame and guilt which can empower and drive the addiction. The truth always can set one free and I bet there is not a family in the world who is not touched by this addiction. 50 years ago, people reacted like this when alcoholism was mentioned and now through AA and a more informed societal conscience, people with that disease can more easily find help and not be alone. God works in mysterious ways...thank you for your yes to him, John!

Unfortunately pornography isn’t relegated to shoeboxes in mom and dad’s closet or the bottom of a stack of magazines on the back of the toilet. It’s not a matter of sneaking around anymore or a fleeting view of a woman’s panties to sate our curiosity.

It’s in our face in the media and advertising. It’s everywhere online from our junk email to pop-up ads. It’s a simple search on any engine or a mistyped URL that exposes us to perversion unlike any known in history.

It’s consuming our children. I took an abnormal sexual psychology course in college that studied the effects of the Internet and the ease-of-access to pornography of all stripes. Exhibitionism and voyeurism are so rampant and pathological today that to even suggest that they’re morally wrong or damaging to the psyche of youth is to elicit sneers and derision for being prudish or “old fashioned.” There’s no mystery in sex or sexuality anymore. With children as young as 10 or 11 being exposed to it, and not just a glimpse of flesh but actual hardcore sexual intercourse, it’s no wonder we’re devolving as a society into this nihilistic, Devil-may-care caste of people who have no value for the institutions of marriage or two-parent child rearing.

The barbarians are inside the gates folks. Ancient Rome fell due to the rot from the inside. Regardless of our want to turn back the clock, the apple has been consumed and God is pissed.

3
posted on 11/27/2012 5:25:17 AM PST
by rarestia
(It's time to water the Tree of Liberty.)

Move to the Middle East. If that won’t cure an addition it will certainly put you in a position where women and their images are forbidden from casual viewing - clothed or otherwise. The penalties visited upon those who violate the local customs are not just shame.

Bad when viewing porno starts crowding your time. Worse when young girls, 17, 16, and younger are taking naked pictures of themselves in their bedrooms and bathrooms, then posting them on popular social media websites.

Its a simple search on any engine or a mistyped URL that exposes us to perversion unlike any known in history.

I ran into that once.There's a fairly well known website on which you can search the political campaign contributions made by famous,as well as ordinary,people.If you drop one letter in the URL you find yourself at a nauseating porn site.I must admit,though,that the name of the political site is a strange one that lends itself to imagination of the perverted.

8
posted on 11/27/2012 5:37:54 AM PST
by Gay State Conservative
(Benghazi: What Did Baraq Know And When Did He Know It?)

Bad when viewing porno starts crowding your time. Worse when young girls, 17, 16, and younger are taking naked pictures of themselves in their bedrooms and bathrooms, then posting them on popular social media websites.

It's even WORSE when a grown man like myself dresses up as a young girl, 17, 16.

10
posted on 11/27/2012 5:38:51 AM PST
by Lazamataz
(Islam is a religious form of Nazism.)

Im not saying watching porn all the time is good or ok. But i certainly understand it in terms of an outlet where a person cant get any “assistance” with his significant other and does not want to cheat or divorce.

The barbarians are inside the gates folks. Ancient Rome fell due to the rot from the inside. Regardless of our want to turn back the clock, the apple has been consumed and God is pissed.

I agree whole heartedly! Just last night I was watching the tube when an ad came on for an online underwear store. It showed a beautiful teenage girl modeling their bra and panty while jumping around and stretching and rolling on the floor. How far we have fallen!

37
posted on 11/27/2012 6:30:45 AM PST
by pgkdan
(We are witnessing the modern sack of Rome. The barbarians have taken over.)

Besides the morality issue, there are other reasons to teach adolescents why they shouldn’t make a habit of feasting on internet porn. For anyone interested in how it can affect young brain development, try searching on the following keywords: fmri pornography neural pathways pruning frontal cortex adolescent brain development

Many parents are unaware that their kids’ brains can be shaped and conditioned by “weird” sexual activities, resulting in an adult who has a life-long dissatisfaction with “boring sex” with “boring partners” — partners who can never live up to what the porn addict grew up viewing online.

Look at it this way: Would YOU want to end up in a long-term relationship with someone who has emotional and sexual intimacy “issues” because he/she grew up masturbating to beastiality, necrophilia, group sex, pedophilia, or lactating anorexic bimbos?

Well, neither would your future daughter/son-in-law, so keep the computer out of your kids’ room. :)

Pornography is Greek for ''The Devil's images.'' Clearly he has some involvement.

Porn is just gross. I just don't want to see that stuff. And like people have said, the ease with which you can accidently stumble across the stuff is just as sickening. Totally inocuous google searches have turned up stuff that just the glimpse you get while smacking alt-F4 was enough to make my stomach lurch.

IMHO, people who have no wholesome outlet, who want to sit and stare at that crap, are really sad and pathetic.

Really, just grab a stick and whittle...Erm, bad example. Read a book, go for a walk, do something useful and wholesome.

As a mom of boys, I’ve thought about this, and sure, it seems like porn might be a bad thing, but I’ve spoken with many men and when they are young it tends to be porn or actual sex ( often with an older controlling adult) . I’d prefer it be porn.

Look, as we can all see, men from pastors to 4 star generals become fools for this little organ. Doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it. (Yeah, wives -— love up your menfolk!)

Ezekiel 33:8-9 " When I say to the wicked: O wicked man, you shall surely die: if you do not speak to warn the wicked man from his way: that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at your hand. But if you tell the wicked man, that he may be converted from his ways, and he be not converted from his way he shall die in his iniquity: but you have delivered your soul."

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